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Nested VSAN Template:

This OVA template allow you to run VMware ESXi inside a VM running on top a physical VMware ESXi host. It’s specifically configured to allow for clustered VMware vSphere VSAN configuration. It implements ALL the performance enhancements implemented in vSphere 6.5 U1, and has been tested with vSphere 6.7. This template currently will NOT work with VMware Fusion, and has NOT been tested on VMware Workstation.

The Ultimate Deployment Appliance:

The UDA is a Linux based virtual appliance – which is a PXE/TFTP/Web-front end system designed to deploy many different operating systems – can be used to deploy ESX4/5 in a scripted installation process. You can see like a poor-mans Alteris or HP Rapid Deployment Pack (RDP). The creator of UDA is Carl Thijssen who is based in the Netherlands. I’m merely a user/test/documenter. The official site for the UDA is ultimatedeployment.org which hosts the VMware Workstation version, whereas I host the VMware ESX version – and you can get “support” on how to deploy ESX with the UDA by posting to this thread on the VMware VMTN Communities Forum.

The current version is UDA 2.0 Build 17, and there is a series patch to take it up to Build 26. You need patch 20, 23 and 26 added sequentially to make the UDA support VMware ESXi.

My scripts were built from a couple of resource which I’d like to acknowledge here. That’s because its been a while since I’ve done serious ESX “kickstart/Weasel” scripting and my own scripts were horribly out-of-date. Rather than re-inventing the wheel, I used sources/resources from the community. So I’d like to thank:

Konstantinos Michalitsis – Who provided the base subtemplate/template which I then modified

William Lam – for how to enable “Management Traffic” on a VMKernel Port

Small Linux VMs for a Home Lab:

I’ve got a range of terrifyingly small OVFs/OVAs for use in your home lab. As we all know memory (and to a much less degree disk space) is premium in a home lab. If you want a number of VMs to play with a good option is to use some super-skinny Linux distribution. Often these start their lives as “boot CD” design for troubleshooting, and then they evolve into something you can install to disk or USB drive. Sadly, there is always a ready to download VMware OVF/OVA to get started with. So I’ve created a bundle for you to choose to download or ones that are available else where.

My personal preference is for SliTaz which although is bigger than Damn Small Linux and TTYLinux – I found more “robust”. By robust I mean I could kill the VM and it would come back up without an error. Whereas DSL (especially) and TTYLinux (less so) would often fail to boot after a dirty shutdown and require a file system check. I think that’s to do with the types of file system supported in each distro.